No longer Solo and Toledo

The boots... Brian taking snaps in Toledo

View of the City of Toledo I'm not as contrary as I look!

This is the municipal square in Toledo

The Cathedral:Saint John of the Kings and the San Martin Bridge with roman ruins in foreground

The sculpture of a south American aboriginal by artist Victorio Mattio and the Monastry garden

The Cathedral in the Monastry

The Damasquinados Suarez Facility and artwork

Day 3 started out with a great walk around Madrid, northwest quadrant. I pretty well stayed around the downtown area. That night I was shopping around the cool army surplus stores and got a call from Brian Bonnell, a colleague of mine from Ottawa. We returned to the Irish Pub for a few Guiness... it was a St. Paddy's celebration night(s). What's the deal in all these south American and Spanish places celebrating St. Paddy?! I guess it's got a whole lot to do with drinking... ya think?

We settled into the main square for supper later and again... watched the ladies solicit duties on the male tourists. Madrid is crawling with prostitution... every corner and then some. As devout science people, Brian and I correlated the profession with heal and boot style. Kim calls them hooker boots. They kind of look like puss 'n boots style... no pun intended just a Shrek reference.

Today, Brian and I headed to Toledo... Like Holy Toledo. 1 hour outside of Madrid, Toledo is a absolutely beautiful historic city. It was founded in 500BC... imagine! It has Jewish, Muslim and Christian history and still respects all three in their promotion of the city. Of course, the Catholic religion here is overwhelming. Kind of sickening with the wildly ostentatious presentation of wealth. btw... I am catholic but see history for what its worth. The crusades were our form of jihad, taking hundreds of thousands of lives in the name of God. Pretty well on every major continent! The church could sell 10 or so masterpieces here and pay off a lot of abuse lawsuits instead of leaving it to bankrupt countless community churches. OK... I'm done.

After visiting the cathedral and monastery, we went to a metal manufacturing facility that still practices a form of gold leafing that was brought here by the Muslims. The also have a silver process for processing metals for knives, scissors, swords, etc. We saw some beautiful handmade jewelery and weapons. The perfect shop of man and wife.

Tonight we are back in Madrid and hopefully meeting up with Leanne, another colleague of mine. I think I'll have something that doesn't moo for a change... perhaps a Baaaa... or a ______ (Can't do a fish sound on a keyboard). Adios!